


Early Bird Gets the Worm

by TheSovereigntyofReality



Series: Transcendent Souls [14]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Nipping a Rotten Apple in the Bud, Speculated Sexuality, Team Tony, not SHIELD friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22064350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSovereigntyofReality/pseuds/TheSovereigntyofReality
Summary: When Pepper is talking to an old friend over what's happened, following the fight of IM1, it leads to a startling discovery.It's time to cut some particular people off at the pass.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Pepper Potts & James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Howard Stark & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (implied) one-sided, Pepper Potts & Original Female Character, Tony Stark & Original Female Character(s), Tony Stark & SHIELD Agents & Staff, pre-Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Transcendent Souls [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1034549
Comments: 211
Kudos: 1344
Collections: Tony Stark deserves more





	1. Sharee Pertinicle

**Author's Note:**

> This story operates under the assumption that you've read the other ones in the series.
> 
> **Disclaimer: If you recognise it from somewhere else, it isn't mine.**

Pepper had been telling Sharee about the recent events involving Obadiah.

It was her mention of Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. that did it. At first, Pepper hadn’t realised anything was happening in her friend’s head because she’d mentioned them in the middle of a sentence. Then, when she stopped, Sharee Pertinicle spoke in a tone of voice that Pepper had never heard from her before.

‘Pepper,’ she said. ‘Get Tony, get Rhodey, get Happy, and get yourself into a secure room. When you’ve done that, give me a call. I’m going to come and tell you something you’d be better off knowing about.’

Pepper was perplexed but she did as she’d been asked.

Tony wasn’t too fussed. Rhodey and Happy were more curious. Although, at least Tony was taking it seriously for once.

‘I guess there’s a bit more to S.H.I.E.L.D. than they’d like us to believe,’ he mused. ‘JARVIS, can you hack in and get any files that have my name on them?’

‘Of course, sir,’ JARVIS said.

JARVIS came back, while all of them were sitting in Tony’s living room waiting on Sharee, with interesting data. Not only had Tony’s name been mentioned but so had his father’s – much more prominently. What JARVIS told them about the data around Tony’s name destroyed the good will that Coulson had managed to build up with them.

‘It seems, sir,’ JARVIS said, ‘that they intend to try and acquire both money and resources from you without going through the appropriate channels.’

‘You mean they want to just take it?’ Pepper asked. She was about to question how they intended to do that without having the legal department come down on them when a golden circle suddenly appeared in the wall across the room.

It seemed to shift and it rotated.

Then Sharee Pertinicle stepped through, as if it was a portal of out a sci-fi movie.

She’d evidently heard the end of that because she said, ‘Nothing so mundane.’

***

S.H.I.E.L.D. had been bugging Potts’s conversation with the archaeologist.

Fury got suspicious of the woman, especially after finding out that her late grandmother had ties to both Howard Stark and Peggy Carter. Did she know something about S.H.I.E.L.D.? He’d had Stark’s place bugged. However, no sooner did they settle to listen in than did a loud high-pitched continuous shriek emit from the receivers.

The cameras were no good either. What should have been shots of the inside of Stark’s living room instead showed old Loony Toons cartoons. Through trying to correct the problem, his hackers found a message. It told him that whoever this Dr. Sharee Pertinicle was, she was a cocky little bitch.

GAME ON, MOTHERFUCKERS

**Stark Mansion**  
‘What was that?’ Tony asked as Sharee flopped down onto the couch opposite them, dropping her backpack at her feet.

‘Eh.’ Sharee shifted nervously. ‘What we named it to make it palatable to the people there doesn’t really apply to you, so we’ll call it a form of energy manipulation.’

‘Energy manipulation?’ Pepper asked. ‘How long have you been able to do this?’

Sharee smirked. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But that’s not what we’re here for.’

‘Right,’ Tony said, ‘S.H.I.E.L.D. My father was involved with them?’

‘As their bankroller, political manoeuvrer, and scientific advisor, yes.’ Sharee leaned up. ‘And also their scapegoat. Let’s not forget scapegoat.’

Tony frowned. It seemed so bizarre that someone could get away with using Howard, of all people, as a scapegoat. The old bastard had always been so snappy...Tony paused at that. Maybe there was a reason he’d been so snappy. ‘How did that come about?’

Sharee groaned. ‘Peggy Carter and Project Rebirth.’ She leaned back and crossed her arms. ‘The reason that Howard was so obsessed with the Star-Spangled Man With A Plan was because he felt, somewhat incorrectly, that Captain America was the one thing he created that didn’t bring destruction to the world. I know of quite a few axis cities that would beg to differ.’

Tony frowned. ‘How do you know that?’

Sharee huffed. ‘My grandmother was familiar with your father in the 40s.’

‘Wow,’ Happy remarked. ‘That’s a coincidence.’

‘Yes, I’m tempted to break into a rendition of “It’s a Small World” but this isn’t a karaoke bar,’ Sharee said. ‘Anyway, because of that, Peggy Carter, as one of the few links he had left, was one of the few people whose opinion of him mattered to him. According to Grandma, that was his first mistake. Because Peggy Carter did not like him. She considered him an opportunistic, money-hungry, lecherous fool.’ She pointed at Tony’s surprised expression. ‘Grandma’s words, not mine. Grandma always said she’d give her the fool bit. The “letch” was debatable.’

With that, Sharee reached into her jacket pocket and drew something out that glinted. As she held it up, Tony was shocked. In her hand she held an impeccable bracelet of diamond and gold. Tony leaned forward and held his hand out. Sharee placed the bracelet in his hand. Upon closer inspection, Tony saw that the diamonds and the gold were the highest quality. This thing would have cost a mint to have made.

‘The Stark Special Bracelet,’ Sharee said. ‘Before he met your mom and settled down, he was as bad for women as you are now. However, the closest thing he had to Potts here was Edwin Jarvis, and his ego was certainly far larger. He had those made for his one-night stands as a sort of memento of the occasion.’

Tony was far from the only one who looked up at her in disbelief.

‘A memento?’ Pepper demanded. ‘That would add insult to injury!’

‘A fact he was clearly oblivious to,’ JARVIS remarked dryly.

Sharee chuckled.

‘So, how’d you get this?’ Rhodey asked. ‘I mean, I’d almost think your grandma was one of his flings, but this conversation doesn’t feel like it’s going in that direction.’

‘It isn’t,’ Sharee said. ‘Grandma acquired that bracelet from a honeypot in 1946.’

A slow smirk came onto Tony’s face. ‘Dad fell for the honeypot routine?’

‘In his defence,’ even as she said it, Sharee looked extremely amused, ‘because of the way women were considered it wasn’t quite such a well-known tactic back then. This particular honeypot was of a particular variety, called a Black Widow. She went by Ida Emke when she honeypotted your dad. Because she was Russian, I very much doubt the name they used for her was her real one.’

‘And that name was?’ Pepper asked.

‘Dorothy Underwood.’

‘Yeah,’ Tony said. ‘Probably not. So...she went in to honeypot dad...?’

‘Because Howard had a problem that, as far as I can tell, you don’t suffer from: when he thought of something, he just _had_ to build it. This led to the creation of what he coined his “bad babies”; weapons that were too dangerous for mass production. Rather than destroy them, though, he locked them away inside his mansion.’

Pepper nodded. ‘I can figure the rest. The honeypot was sent in to find where those weapons were so they could be stolen.’

‘Yup. One thunderstorm later, because security systems of the 40s sucked, and Howard stood accused of treason.’

There was a silence in the room.

‘What?’ Tony asked. ‘Okay, I never heard this story before.’

‘Didn’t he report the burglary?’ Happy asked.

‘Of course he did,’ Sharee said. ‘But this was about a year before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which wouldn’t have allowed a bunch of indignant toffs to use the event as an excuse to get rid of a self-made millionaire. So Howard called on Peggy Carter to clear his name while he went on the run.’

‘And that’s how it started?’ Tony asked.

‘Yeah,’ Sharee said, ‘because Jarvis – not you,’ that was directed upwards, ‘was helping her. In that time he grew quite fond of these...adventures as he called them. And he went with her as frequently as he could.’

‘Edwin Jarvis?’ Tony asked doubtfully. ‘The same Edwin Jarvis who was a stickler for his routines, and was easily the wisest person I knew?’

Sharee shrugged. ‘Well, to become old and wise we must first be young and stupid.’

‘I’ll say,’ Pepper muttered, mostly to herself.

Sharee smirked. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say Carter ever cleared Howard’s name. It’d be more accurate to say he cleared his own name when he volunteered to be bait for a trap to draw in the thieves. But that’s another story!’ She leaned forward again. ‘Anyway, the point is that that’s where it started.’

‘And what’s this got to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.?’ Pepper asked.

‘S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded from the remnants of the old SSR, by three people.’ Sharee counted them off on her fingers. ‘Col. Chester Phillips, Peggy Carter...and Howard Stark.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea here is that Pepper's phone call takes place the night of the ordeal. She literally called a friend to vent about something she's having trouble emotionally processing.
> 
> And, yes, the Stark Special is actually canon to the Agent Carter TV series.


	2. Where Due

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Tony and his friends try to understand what Howard was thinking, Sharee has more ~~good~~ news for them.

Pepper was the first to break the shocked silence.

‘Oh, my God!’ She dropped her head into her hands. ‘The man was an _idiot_!’

‘Yes, very much lacking in common sense,’ Sharee said. ‘Grandma told me this one story where, while he was on the run, he called up Jarvis because he wanted to know how to mix up his favourite drink.’

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘You know what? The sense I do have, I must’ve gotten from my mother.’

‘No kidding,’ Rhodey remarked. ‘But it must’ve occurred to him later, cause Tony didn’t know a thing about this.’

‘Most likely,’ Sharee said. ‘Grandma left beforehand. S.H.I.E.L.D. did, however, have strict instructions to stay away from you, Tony.’

‘How do you know that?’ Tony asked.

Sharee answered with a name. ‘Otto Fabian.’

‘Who?’ Happy asked.

‘Otto Fabian was a German born around the time of World War I,’ Sharee said. ‘He served as a mole in HYDRA during the next war and by the time he died he was a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Level 10 Clearance – which essentially means he had access to nearly all their secrets. He created an extensive file in hard copy only, which he left in my grandmother’s hands.’ She leaned over and opened her backpack. She pulled out a thick folder. ‘And this…is it.’

Again, Tony held his hand out. Again, Sharee handed it over.

Tony opened the file and quickly read the first page. His eyebrows lifted. ‘So…HYDRA was originally a cult called “the Worshippers of the Hive”?’

‘Yup.’

‘So it’s not likely to really be gone,’ Rhodey said.

‘It isn’t.’ Sharee nodded her head and leaned over. She flicked a few pages over and pointed to a paragraph.

Tony read the paragraph. ‘Aw, shit.’

‘What?’ Rhodey asked.

Tony leaned over and read it aloud. ‘“Carter’s made this too easy for them. Her ends-justifies-the-means preferences allow HYDRA to blend right in like a charmeleon. It doesn’t help that Phillips and Stark really know jack-all about intelligence agencies and why they shouldn’t operate like this. Of course, Stark’s suspicious of Arnim Zola, but he’s also far too distracted by all his new toys to really notice and do anything productive about it”.’

‘So, HYDRA infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. from the start?’ Rhodey asked.

‘Yup.’

Pepper raised an eyebrow. ‘Otto Fabian never stopped being a mole in HYDRA, did he?’

‘No. And HYDRA got into most of the command positions in S.H.I.E.L.D. By now, I expect, every member of the World Security Council is HYDRA.’

‘What’s the World Security Council?’ Happy asked.

‘It’s in there.’ Sharee waved a hand at the file. ‘Apparently, someone decided that there needed to be a council to decide what was best for the whole world.’

‘Sounds very HYDRA,’ Tony mused suspiciously.

Rhodey shook his head. ‘There’s no way they’re legitimate. You’d need a legal document to get that kind of power. It’d never get through the kind of approval process it’d need.’

‘No. The only authority they have is over S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Sharee’s eyes narrowed. ‘And that’s not even mentioning the Index.’

‘The Index?’ Tony asked.

‘Right, that’s the point of this whole thing.’ Sharee sat back. ‘And the reason why I imagine they decided to approach you now: your escape from Afghanistan.’

‘Sorry, what?’ Tony asked.

‘Peggy Carter was paranoid about anyone who displayed power,’ Sharee said. ‘Granted, her main examples when she developed this paranoia included the likes of Whitney Frost – tale for another time – but eventually she began to develop views that were blantantly draconian in nature. If anyone had that kind of power, be it extremely high intelligence, physical prowess, or enhancement, they had to be either pulled under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s power – by any means – or removed entirely. This often meant locking them up. If they couldn’t be contained, they were killed.’

Tony considered her, turning this over in his head.

‘Did dad know about this?’ Tony asked.

‘Unlikely. Grandma always felt he was the very first person on the Index, due to his high intelligence and complusion to build anything he concieved of.’ She leaned back. ‘Besides, grandma always said the Howard Stark she knew would never have approved of such a thing in a million years.’

‘So, Tony’s come onto the Index because he escaped from the Ten Rings by himself?’ Rhodey asked.

‘Correct.’ Sharee rolled her neck. ‘They’re going to try to control you first. If that fails, they’ll start facilitating ways for you to die. But, when Otto lost faith in Howard, he redirected the hopes he’d had to you, so you’ve got a lot more power in this than they imagine.’

‘For example?’ Tony asked, reaching over and taking Pep’s hand as she’d frozen up.

‘Well, for starters…’ Sharee lifted her head. ‘Hey, JARVIS, do you notice that presence just on your periphery?’

‘Yes, Dr. Pertinicle, I had noticed,’ JARVIS said. ‘As the presence was doing nothing, I had elected just to keep an eye on it.’

‘Well, that’s Zhen,’ Sharee said. ‘He’s a technopath. He’s currently screwing around with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s systems so they can’t use all the bugs they’ve got in the room to spy on us. He’s also got the base code of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s system for you. With that, you should be able to build firewalls that’ll keep them out.’

Immediately, Tony glanced around the room. In other circumstances, he might be amused.

‘Ah, yes,’ JARVIS said. ‘And I’ve already begun. Do go on, Dr. Pertinicle.’

‘For another thing,’ Sharee pointed at the file, ‘while infiltrating HYDRA, Otto put a whole bunch of systems in place in order to bring both HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. tumbling down. The details are in the file. Originally, he was counting on Howard to do it but, as time went on, he doubted the old man more and more.’

‘So, he turned his hopes to me.’ Tony nodded. He started flicking through the file again. ‘So, how are we gonna start? The World Security Council…?’ He found something and chuckled. ‘And dad didn’t notice him tinkering in the Long Island house?’

Sharee chuckled. ‘Apparently not.’

‘What?’ Pepper looked at the folder. ‘Tony, I don’t speak German. What does it say?’

Tony tapped the sentence written out in front of him. ‘There’s a switch in dad’s lab – in a computer terminal I remember very well. Guess dad just used it to communicate with S.H.I.E.L.D. Otto calls it a comm console. You flick that and all the data about the World Security Council is suddenly released worldwide.’

There was a stunned silence in the room.

‘He did this _before_ the digital age?’ Happy demanded, sounding impressed.

‘I guess he knew your technopath friend,’ Tony remarked to Sharee.

Sharee grinned. ‘That’s another tale for another time. But, yeah. When he died, computers were in their infancy, but there was still enough of a network that Otto felt it would work when the time came. Zhen’s powers are such that he can affect computers remotely. So he just made adjustments to the system after Otto died so that when you flick the switch, it’ll go straight onto the internet.’

‘And any security systems around the council?’ Rhodey asked.

‘Obliterated.’

‘All from the flick of a switch?’ Pepper asked.

‘All from the flick of a switch.’

Tony stood up. ‘You know what, platypus? I think it’s time I go back and give my childhood home a bit of a dust.’


	3. Step 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...of 2.

There were dusty old sheets thrown over everything.

A key card was used on the door and it opened on squeaky hinges.

‘How’s long it been since you’ve actually been here?’ Pepper asked as she, Rhodey, and Happy followed Tony in.

‘Few years, I dunno.’

‘About two decades,’ Rhodey said.

‘Yeah, well…’ Tony strode across the lab to the very back and pulled a large white sheet down. Underneath was an extremely large and outdated computer console system. Tony leaned over it and began poking around.

‘Looking for something, boss?’ Happy asked.

‘The connection,’ Tony said. ‘Otto and Zhen would have needed to have added a physical device or cord in order to connect this to the web.’ He shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe dad didn’t notice them tinkering around down here. He hated even me touching any of his stuff.’

Rhodey chuckled. ‘And he knew that you were every bit the engineering genius that he was.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, Otto at least did spend most of his life infiltrating HYDRA,’ Pepper point out. ‘I’d say he knew how to be discreet. On top of that, HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. from the word go so it’s not like he didn’t have access to Howard’s schedule.’

‘That’s true,’ Tony said. ‘Big house, very limited number of people, and the guy who claimed this as his domain was out most of the day. If you can bypass the alarms, it’d be pretty easy to sneak in.’ He stopped. ‘Aha! J, scan this connection here.’

‘Scanning now, sir.’

‘Found it?’ Rhodey asked.

‘I think so.’

‘Indeed it is, sir. That is the connection you were seeking.’

‘So what now?’ Pepper asked.

‘Now, we power her up.’ Tony pulled a lever. The machine gave a splutter and then began to hum. Tony calmly watched as the readings flash across the screen. His hands manipulated the controls with a practiced ease that suggested he had been at the monitor before. Of course, if he had.

‘Tones,’ Rhodey said, ‘you weren’t supposed to touch this, right?’

‘I wasn’t supposed to touch a lot of things according to the old man,’ Tony responded blithely. ‘But, let’s be honest, he should have stayed very far away from the covert super spy band, not help found them.’

‘At least it finally sank in that he did the wrong thing,’ Rhodey said, ‘I mean, at least enough to forbid them from coming anywhere near you.’

‘Not that it stopped them,’ Happy interjected from the back of the room.

Tony snorted. ‘No.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But this will.’

‘Just exposing the World Security Council?’ Pepper asked.

‘Oh, that’s only step one,’ Tony said. ‘The World Security Council’s existence will have people invesitgate and discover the HYDRA rot that has set in to all levels of society. But part two will expose S.H.I.E.L.D. in all their glory. They can claim to be the good guys all they like, but when they have the Ice Box and call the strike force of enhanced they do have “the Avengers”, you know they’ve got problems.’

‘The Avengers?’ Rhodey asked.

‘Yup. Apparently, there’s been a few teams pulled together to “do the things that nobody else can; fight the threats that are beyond everyone else”. Throughout, it’s always been made up primarily of enhanced people – or people with things like the Iron Man suit.’

His friends looked at him in confusion.

‘Like it?’ Pepper asked. ‘I thought the suit was unique.’

‘It is. I mean people who have technology that gives them even footing with enhanced people,’ Tony said. ‘The last group was in the eighties. That team included Ant-Man and the Wasp, or Hank Pym and his wife, Janet, who wore suits that made them shrink down to the size of an ant. It was stopped when Janet was lost in the Quantum Realm and Pym let the grief entirely take over his life.’

Pepper nodded. ‘And they were thinking of starting it back up again?’

‘Yup, and I was on their list of prospectives.’ Tony frowned. ‘Anyway, each team has also had one or two S.H.I.E.L.D. field agents on said team.’

‘What the hell for?’ Happy asked.

‘I wondered that too. I began to get suspicious when I saw who was lined up for this particular team: Agent Clint Barton, a sniper with a proclivity for archery, and Agent Natasha Romanoff, formerly Natalia Romanova – an apparently-deferred Black Widow.’

His friends were stunned into silence.

‘Like the one that went after your dad?’ Rhodey asked.

Tony nodded once. ‘One and the same.’

‘A sniper…’ Pepper mused, ‘…and a honeypot assassin.’ She let a breath out through her nose. ‘Let me guess: their job is to “deal with” anyone who shows signs of rebellion?’

‘All of the data appears to support this, Miss Potts,’ JARVIS said. ‘Miss Romanoff is very skilled at manipulating people, and she was clearly the one intended to be holding the leash, so to speak.’

‘Well, they can’t have gotten them all,’ Rhodey said as the group absorbed that.

‘Nope.’ Tony looked over his shoulder. ‘Oh, by the way, Pep. Get ready to move the head office back to here.’

‘Why?’ Pepper asked.

‘Because, when it comes to enhanced, this is where their highest population density is.’ Tony’s eyes narrowed as he examined the console, looking for Fabian’s switch. ‘And it’ll be easier for me to protect them if I’m in the city.’

At that moment, Tony found what he was looking for. A panel at the bottom of the console, which should have just been a joint, moved under Tony’s searching fingers. He pushed down on it. It depressed and then flipped over before rising again. Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy gathered around to look down on it.

‘Amazing to think that Howard never found that,’ Rhodey remarked.

‘Not particularly, Col. Rhodes,’ JARVIS said, ‘as Sir touched the panel, a rather old-fashioned fingerprint scanner activated. The elder Mr. Stark could have touched the panel a thousand times but it wouldn’t activate because it was designed to respond to Sir’s fingerprints.’

‘How would they have gotten your fingerpirnts before your parents died, Boss?’ Happy asked.

‘Quite simple, actually,’ Tony said. ‘I was a very hands-on kid. I touched a hell of a lot of stuff I wasn’t supposed to, and dad wasn’t exactly careful when he was supposed to be minding me. I’d wander off and wander back and he hadn’t even noticed I was gone.’

Pepper looked appalled. ‘Really?’

Tony nodded. ‘I knew the SI offices and factory as well as I knew my own house. It’d be a cinch for one of those Transcendents to slip in as an employee, hand me something, and then take it back and then – boom – Tony Stark’s fingerprints acquired.’

Happy pulled a face. ‘And that could’ve been anybody.’

‘Yup, but let’s just be glad they managed it.’

With that, Tony flicked the switch.


	4. Step 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The World Security Council is exposed.
> 
> S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't far behind.

The World Security Council was exposed.

The whole world suddenly went at their throats. Stark didn’t even try to hide his part in it. He found the information, and he shared it. Obviously he’d gotten it from this old friend of Potts’ (who had suddenly vanished off the face of the planet). Her grandmother’s contact with Carter and Stark, and the old woman’s awareness of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s existence, had been an oversight that Fury had only just discovered.

It’d been an oversight that Peggy Carter and Howard Stark had chosen to ignore.

It was clear this woman had no qualms with sharing what she did know. Coulson winced as he considered that this would never have happened if they’d had the chance to make Potts sign a confidentiality agreement before she made that ill-fated phone call.

The problem was that Coulson and his men had been waiting for reinforcements while Stark had fought Stane. In all honestly, no one had thought the billionaire capable of winning that fight. Then the Arc Reactor had overloaded, frying it and knocking the whole factory out until the back-up generators kicked in.

By the time S.H.I.E.L.D. returned to the factory, Stark and Potts were already gone. They’d been picked up by Stark’s bodyguard, Harold Hogan. Then Potts was making her phone call, and it’d all gone downhill from there. Fury had underestimated who he was dealing with, even after Sharee Pertincile had hacked their servers and kept them from listening in on the conversation.

Romanoff was being prepped to go in and get a foot in the door with Stark, but Coulson didn’t think it was a good idea. Pertincile’s grandmother was around for Howard Stark’s first two Black Widow encounters. She knew them. If she had no qualms telling them about S.H.I.E.L.D., she would have no qualms telling her family about them either, and Pertincile had likely already warned Stark.

Fury viewed it as a good way to test just how much Pertincile knew.

Romanoff thought it was going to be a quick in-and-out mission.

**Malibu, CA**  
The resulting shitstorm from the WSC being exposed was a thing to behold. Tony didn’t even have to hide his involvement. In fact, as far as his intentions went, it went better if he didn’t hide his involvement. So, he held a press conference to explain why he’d dropped the information in the way he had.

‘During my first press conference after my return from Afghanistan, Miss Potts was approached by a fellow called Agent Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division – or S.H.I.E.L.D. He then began to make a real nuisance of himself trying to get a meeting with me. Now, neither of us had ever heard of this organisation. Our initial assumption was that it was just so useless that were hardly worth mentioning. However, their actions and movements around the Iron Monger debacle showed them to be very competent and very efficient, so we knew that our initial assumption was wrong. So, I looked into it.’

‘What did you find out?’ one reporter asked.

‘S.H.I.E.L.D. is a covert government organisation founded in the 1950s, from the remanents of the SSR – who were responsible for Project Rebirth – and answerable only to the World Security Council.’

The Press had an absolute field day with that.

Tony decided to let the good people of the world handle the rest. And, handle it, they did. He was far from the only skilled hacker in the world. And those hackers very quickly got to work. Meanwhile, as Tony watched from his lab, the rest of the alphabet soup was only all-too-happy to make their displeasure with S.H.I.E.L.D. and its operational methods known. Soon Peggy Carter’s name had arrived on the scene – along with the information that she was one of the founders and the original Director.

Then, after Peggy Carter came Chester Phillips. Now, Tony hadn’t known Phillips had anything to do with S.H.I.E.L.D., and he soon learned why. The man had left within ten years. Then, good old Christine Everhart had managed to track down his grandson and find out why he’d left. The man was more than willing to talk.

‘Grandpa,’ he’d been quoted saying, ‘didn’t know much about intelligence agencies when he got involved. He believed Carter when she said everything had to be done in the shadows because she was the only one of the three of the founders who was aware of the procedures. She just decided they shouldn’t apply to her and she was vicious with anyone who opposed her. She would tout “the greater good” like it was gospel.’

Of course, that begged the question: Who was the third founder?

Tony knew it was only a matter of time.

Some people, who’d worked when Howard was CEO, were the first to suggest the idea. They quietly observed how Stane had gotten so much power. Despite founding SI, Howard Stark was at the office even less than Tony was pre-Afghanistan. In fact, they even remarked that they were pleasantly surprised just how often Tony _was_ there.

That was news to Tony.

Anyway, Howard’s neglectful parenting was rather better-known than the old man would’ve liked. But, frankly, when you bring the kid to work and he actually gets into one of the research labs while you’re still in your office, it’s hard to hide the fact that you’re a neglectful parent. _So_ , if Howard wasn’t at the office, and he most likely wasn’t at home…where was he?

Then some ever-so-helpful hacker discovered S.H.I.E.L.D. transcripts of meetings in which Howard had been involved. Bang. There’s your answer. However, the tone in which Howard was spoken to was immediately picked up on. Psychologists and the like were immediately consulted and made it clear that they were _very concerned_ with the way Howard was being spoken to and treated in those transcripts.

So, they dug deeper…and found Howard’s management profile.

That is, the profile on how to manage Howard Stark; how to control him, and get as much out of him as possible. And then all of the worst fears of the professionals were realised. Because, on this digitalised bit of paper, gaslighting, guilt-tripping, and negging were all suggested, among other things. Tony especially hated the line, “cater to his ego only when absolutely necessary”.

_Jesus! If that’s how dad was treated everyday, no wonder he was so bad-tempered!_

And, for the first time since he could remember, Tony began to feel sorry for his father.

The most interesting thing on the profile, however, was Howard’s Index Designation. So then people began to wonder what that was, and started looking into it.

Of course, people did, briefly question if Tony knew of S.H.I.E.L.D. beforehand. Then a few people pointed out that the thing that’d aroused Tony’s suspicions was the fact that he’d never heard of this actually competent organisation. So, obviously not. Added onto the fact SI’s PR department had picked up a S.H.I.E.L.D.-employed Black Widow trying to weasel her way into the company.

Which, of course, led to the publication of just what a Black Widow was – and resulting in the FBI throwing her to the feet of the KBG with a “have your spy back”.

Back to the Index Designation thing…Well, the more you tried to hide something from hackers, the more they flocked to it like vultures to a carcass. It didn’t matter how good the S.H.I.E.L.D. hackers were, they couldn’t keep the Index locked away forever. The hackers were too numerous and they got in.

The discovery of the Index led to the discovery of the Ice Box.

Then the shit _really_ hit the fan.

Tony never thought he’d see an angry mob in the 21st century. But he sat in the penthouse of his new New York residence, watching as the news covered the mass of people angrily converging on S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, enraged at their blantant disregard for basic human rights. Some of New York’s enhanced had even come out of the woodwork.

‘These pricks have been making us all look over our shoulders and creep around,’ one person said. ‘Most of us have done nothing wrong.’

And that was the thing. Most of them had done nothing wrong.

They just happened to have powers.

Soon the alphabet soup moved in and S.H.I.E.L.D., surrounded by the mob and the people it’d terrified into obscurity, was taken down. Everyone inside was arrested on charges of flagrant violations of human rights. Tony knew they’d now try to work out who was directly responsible, who was simply complicit, and who knew absolutely nothing about any of it. And the agents on missions would probably go on the run, making them guilty in the eyes of the law.

Then the Navy grabbed the Ice Box and staged a rescue of the inmates. Tony had personally assisted in that.

That was when the very worst thing was discovered.

Not all of the inmates were enhanced.

There was a small group of them, all elderly, who had been stuck there for a good chunk of their lives. And Tony was outraged to discover the reason.

‘You were from Brooklyn?’ he asked one of the few who was still mentally sharp. Most of them had either passed away, and their bodies had been dumped into the ocean, or had long-since broken down from the treatment (or lack thereof) they’d received.

‘I was a child when Steve Rogers lived there,’ he said bitterly. ‘Carter locked me up because I didn’t have the same opinion of the man that she did. But, unfortunately for her, we can’t all be hot under the collar for the man.’

‘And the others were locked up for the same reason?’ Tony asked.

‘Yes. I knew one chap who was locked up because he said Rogers was an entitled little brat.’

Tony smirked slightly at the description. After years of hearing his father sing Rogers’ praises, it was kind of nice to hear the opposite. The old man noticed and smiled slightly. ‘Stark, isn’t it?’ He chuckled. ‘Look at that: born into wealth and power, and you’re still miles better than Rogers ever was.’

That one surprised Tony. Rogers was supposed to be the personification of all that was good and all-American. He was actually now curious to hear some of these stories. ‘What do you mean?’

The old man settled against his hospital bed. ‘Well, Rogers’ mother was a war widow. She had to raise a boy who couldn’t go a few days without getting sick on the wages of a night nurse. She’d work and then come home to look after her sickly son. He couldn’t go a day without getting into fights. And he wasn’t getting into fights with bullies, as he liked to claim. A few of the people he got into fights with even minded me as a child. They were just people who had different opinions from him. He was weedy and asthmatic, and he was always spoiling for a fight. My mother told me that the only reason he and Barnes were friends was because Barnes was trying to make things easier on Mrs. Rogers.’

Tony pressed his lips togher. If this was the common perception in Brooklyn back in the day…It was clear Carter’s fear mongering was entirely to keep her clean image of her long-lost love, rather than risk people finding out the truth. Now that Tony thought about it, the stories he had heard…they skipped over the things that Rogers did wrong (like trying to fraudulently enlist) and tried to act like it was no big deal. His dad and Carter had been selling an image. He wondered if Howard knew that this was how Carter treated people who disagreed with that image of their wonder boy.

‘Probably a good thing he died when he did,’ Tony remarked.

‘I should say so! I shudder to think of what he’d have done in peacetime.’


	5. A New Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As one problem is resolved, a new one arises.

**New York**  
Like a stack of cards, S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed. HYDRA along with it. Although, Tony wouldn’t say entirely. They’d existed for thousands of years. There was a legend in HYDRA’s halls that said they were responsbile for the disappearance of the ancient Mayan culture. The archaeological world was currently trying to determine if there was any truth to that, or if it was just propaganda to make HYDRA look scary.

Most of their agents were sentenced to prison, probably cursing Tony Stark’s name.

Tony suddenly had a mountain of his father’s research returned to him. Apparently, S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken liberties when the old man died. Tony opened up the research and started looking over it. He soon found data that indicated Howard had been on the verge of creating a new element but he couldn’t _quite_ get it.

All he was missing was a particle accelerator.

So, Tony told Pepper what he was doing and built one in the new factory lab. He then proceeded to finish what the old man had begun. He finished it just in time to learn that the palladium was leaking out of his Arc Reactor and into his bloodstream. A quick test and he substituted the palladium with his new Starkonium, as he hoped to call it.

It was hardly the first time something had been named after its inventor.

Worked like a charm.

Meanwhile, the enhanced began to crawl out of the woodwork. Human mutates, inhumans, mutants – And wasn’t that a surprise? To learn that people could be born like that; that there was a mutation working its way through the human race. That was why mutants were, to the general public, suddenly so much scarier than inhumans. They couldn’t not have powers and it could easily happen to them or their children.

It was going to take a _hell_ of a lot of positive PR to acclimatise people to the idea.

It didn’t help that a certain fearmonger (*cough*Ross*cough*) immediately tried to get control of as many mutants as he could. He went for absolute worst scenarios, making it sound like mutants were a new thing and wanted to destroy all the normal people. Unfortunately for him, Tony put Jennifer Walters on it and sued him for slander – proving in the court case that mutants had been around as long as humans had.

_‘If they were going to destroy us, they’d have done it already.’_

Of course, the result of this was a meeting with one Professor Charles Xavier, who had wanted to personally express his gratitude. Evidently, Ross’s political attack on mutants had gotten quite a few of his students nervous and jumpy. And there was apparently a radical called Magneto who had been planning a preemptive strike on Ross before Tony had stepped in.

‘Well, that would’ve made the situation worse,’ Tony stated. ‘A preemptive strike on a figure like Ross would give credence to everyone spitting out anti-mutant rhetoric.’

‘Yes, I’ve been trying to get Erik to understand that for years. It’s never really sunk in.’

Tony winced as the term of address brought him to the conclusion that the Professor and Magneto had likely once been friends – maybe they even still were. Must’ve been hard to have to stand against your friend. But, all the same, with that one trial, Iron Man gained allies in the form of the X-Men.

They were a great help when Vanko tried to kill him.

It was especially amusing watching Vanko freak out when the Wolverine kept coming at him, regardless of how much he was hit by the whips.

Then…Captain America was found.

Due to the “unsavoury” information they’d acquired – which his best girl had tried to suppress – it was decided to put him in immediate quarrantine. That was when the It’s-A-Small-World factor came in again. Another of the Transcendent Souls, an Irishwoman called Ethne, had been his schoolteacher in her previous life.

‘He won’t stay there,’ she said. ‘Not by himself.’ She’d scoffed. ‘He couldn’t even go to the principal’s office by himself. You sent him without Bucky Barnes and he’d walk out of the schoolgrounds and skulk around Brooklyn instead.’

‘Really?’ Tony had asked in interest. ‘What difference did Barnes make?’

Ethne had let out a breath. ‘Well, I couldn’t say so then, but I can say it now: I think he was in love with Bucky.’

Tony’s eyebrows went up. ‘So Captain America was homosexual?’

‘Maybe. If not, he had attachment issues to Barnes.’

‘And Barnes?’ Rhodey asked.

‘Did not have the same problem.’

‘And,’ Tony said, ‘seeing as we don’t have a Barnes – who is currently in rehab – we need to hold him down another way.’

The “another way” came in an interesting form. They needed someone who could sit in a room with a super-soldier who was potentially contagious with a deadly disease and could pin him down, all without getting sick himself. Tony’s health problems meant he’d been asked to stay as far away as possible. Of course, Wolverine stepped in. Even if he caught the TB from Rogers, he was perfectly willing to stay in quarrantine until it was out of his system.

Now, nobody else was actually in the room when Rogers woke up but they certainly heard the crashing.

And, when they looked through the observation window, several people were deeply amused to see that Logan Howlett had Steve Rogers on the floor, arms twisted behind his back and trapped under the Wolverine’s bodyweight, and legs held immobile by one hand around the ankles, and Rogers squirming like a worm.

And Logan just looked bored.

Medical scans were a pain in the neck to get, but Rogers kept insisting he wasn’t sick; he didn’t get sick. He seemed to think this was an attack of some kind. He called Logan a bully and actually tried to fight him, only for Logan to restrain him. In fact, it took a full year for them to actually get any blood out of Rogers. And then they were able to test it.

Logan had also made a statement. _‘This dickhead hits as hard as he can every time. First time he didn’t know I could take it, but he did it anyway.’_

This, of course, led several people to the fear that Steve Rogers was a public danger.

When the test results finally came back, Tony was relieved. ‘So, it’s not something we’d respond to?’

Dr. Redfern from the medical devision nodded. ‘No, we’re lucky. The disease in his blood mutated so that humans won’t get sick. We tested Logan too. It looks like the only one it would affect would be Rogers himself.’

‘But he’s not coughing up his lungs yet?’

‘Not yet, no. We can lift the quarrantine, though.’ He looked nervous.

Tony smiled. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve already got several other mutants standing by to keep guard on Rogers if he turns violent again—’ cause he seemed to like doing that. ‘—and I’ve got psychiatrists waiting to examine him. Though it might be in our best interests to call it a routine evaluation.’

‘Do you think he’ll believe you?’

‘Has he been told I’m Howard’s son?’

‘Not yet, no, but he hasn’t asked.’

Tony pressed his lips together and nodded. ‘Then we’ll have to try that.

***

Steve didn’t like that Logan guy, with his foul-smelling cigars and inhuman strength. He had been with Steve ever since he had woken up in the 21st century. More than once, he’d even slammed Steve down and told him he needed to calm down – usually when Steve got angry over his treatment.

He was nothing but a bully.

Now he was “escorting” Steve through a corridor. He then walked him into a room. Steve was about to glare at him, but what Logan said cut that thought off. ‘Stark.’

But the man that turned around in the office was _not_ Howard. Sure, he had the same brown eyes, but it wasn’t Howard.

‘Thanks, Logan.’ And his voice was oddly similar to Howard’s. ‘Steve Rogers. Please, sit down.’ He gestured to the chair.

Well, at least he had more manners than everyone else in this century. Steve sat down, but angled his chair so he could still see Logan in his perpheral vision. ‘Stark?’

The other man sat down behind the desk in the room. ‘Yes. My name is Tony Stark. I’m Howard’s son.’

That surprised Steve, but he smiled. ‘Oh. Well, it’s nice to know Howard settled down. I only knew him when he was young and single.’

There was a peculiar look on Tony’s face. ‘So I heard.’ He flicked open a folder in front of him. ‘Now, do you know precisely what happened to you?’

Steve frowned. ‘I crashed the Valkyrie. I woke up and they told me we’d won.’

Tony cocked an eyebrow. ‘That’s the long and short of it, yes.’ He looked down at the file in front of him. ‘Now, I’d like you to remember that it took my PA – who’s a lovely lady, by the way – an awful lot of work and wrangling so I could be here, so I’ll ask you to appreciate that.’

Steve nodded. ‘Of course.’ Still, he wondered why Tony’s PA would have to wrangle anyone.

‘All right.’ Tony flicked over a few more pages. ‘Now, according to the reports I’ve been given, you’ve been put into a reintegration program, but you don’t seem to be taking it in.’

Steve frowned, wondering if this was some kind of test. He’d had thought he was past having to prove himself. He frowned disapprovingly. ‘It’s all pointless. There’s not a single piece of important information in there.’

Tony did not look impressed. ‘World politics are pointless? The Numenburg Trials were pointless? The UN is pointless? They’re trying to teach you what’s changed since you’ve been having your ice nap. There are a lot of things that you probably didn’t think twice about that are now considered immoral.’

Steve pulled a face. ‘Like what?’

‘The way you treated African-Americans, the way you treated women, the way you treated indiginous populations.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘The way you treated basically anyone who didn’t fit into your mould.’

Steve winced. ‘You realise I was once one of those people?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Stark flicked a few more sheets. ‘I’ve got your medical file from that time here.’ He then flicked the whole thing shut again. ‘But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Look, if you’re going to continue being Captain America in peacetime, you have to learn what the world is like now.’

‘I _am_ Captain America.’ Steve made sure his voice was as firm as any commanding officer. ‘No one can take that away.’

Stark was unmoved. ‘Actually, we can. See, you're not the only superhero in town anymore. We’ve got Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, Jones, Sentry, Logan’s one of the X-Men’s heavy hitters.’ He gestured to the man standing on the edge of the room, smoking one of his cigars again.

‘Yer forgot to mention Iron Man,’ he remarked.

Stark waved it off. ‘One of many.’ He looked back at Steve. ‘The point is that you’re the new kid on the block. You wanna play the game, you’ve gotta learn the rules.’

‘Game?’ Steve went to leap to his feet, only for Logan’s hand to land on his shoulder and push him back down. ‘I’m the hero! I save people! Your father would be disgusted at you for this!’ It was clear to him now that Howard’s son was responsible for his forced incarceration.

How could Howard have let his own child grow into this self-centred brat?

Stark sat back and cleared out his ear. ‘Let’s be frank. You knew Howard for a grand total of a few months, all up, and in the middle of a war. You knew him no better than he knew you. Don’t presume you knew him. Cause he certainly didn’t know you.’ Stark stood up and folded his arms. ‘On top of that, you’re Captain America. You go anywhere wearing our flag on your ass, you are America.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you really going to take us back into war out of a desire to play hero?’

‘I don’t start wars!’ Steve told him.

‘Yes,’ Stark said. ‘And everything we’re trying to teach you about the here and now is designed to keep it that way.’ He looked at Steve with an odd kind of look. ‘I understand that you’ve had a massive culture shock, but the world you knew is gone. It’s time to adapt to the here and now.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intended only five chapters, but the last one stretched on so long, I decided to split it into two.


	6. The Last Resort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calling Bucky in really was the last resort.

‘Sorry about this, Sarge,’ Col. Rhodes said as he led him through the facility. ‘I know you’re still undergoing treatment, but we’ve tried everything else.’

Every single one of the doctors treating this man had protested, but at the end of the day...

Barnes nodded, unimpressed himself. ‘It’s not your fault. Steve always was too stubborn for his own good. God knows why I was the only one who could get him to do anything.’ He scoffed. ‘Psychologist’s field day, honestly!’

Rhodes smirked. ‘Well, good luck.’ He stopped at the door.

Barnes nodded as the guard opened the door and let him in. He sighed to himself when he saw Steve in there, glaring at Logan...who was completely ignoring him. The Wolverine, who he’d encountered once as the Winter Soldier (his handlers had, afterwards, considered the mutant too dangerous to send him after again), nodded to him and got up. He briskly walked out and past Barnes, which, of course, led Steve’s eye to him.

‘Bucky?’ Steve asked, disbelieving. ‘Is that you?’

‘In the flesh.’ Well, mostly. He still had a synthetic arm. They’d decided, until the conditioning was well and truly broken, it wasn’t safe to give him a proper arm. It still looked real enough though.

‘But...’ Steve got up and moved forward.

Barnes waved it off. ‘Yeah, yeah, I fell off a cliff. Well, before you came swooping in that first time, they had already injected me with a rip-off of the stuff the allies pumped into you. Not quite the same but close enough for me to survive that plunge.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Unfortunately for me, I found by HYDRA, and became the longest-serving POW in history.’

Steve winced and walked over. He clasped Barnes’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Bucky. If I’d have known, I’d have come and gotten you.’

Yeah, he would’ve. But that didn’t make Barnes feel any better. He moved over and took up the windowsill Logan had been sitting on. ‘So...how have they been treating you?’

Steve scowled. ‘Terribly. You know Howard’s son is in charge of this?’

‘What gave you that idea?’ Barnes asked. Obviously, that was one of the things they tried: getting Howard's son to try to talk sense into him.

‘I was taken to speak to him. It was obvious. Howard would be disappointed.’

Yes, but probably not in his son. ‘Howard’s son is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar international giant of industy. This is a federal facility. Tony Stark is a businessman, not a government official.’

‘Then why did he show up and tell me that the city’s full of superheroes who have more experience than me?’

Barnes frowned at him. ‘Because it is. Some of those guys out there have been doing what they’re doing for years and years. Iron Man alone has been going on for four years.’

Steve shook his head. ‘Well, I’ve been Captain America since 1943.’

‘And you were asleep for seventy of those years,’ Barnes pointed out. ‘You only had two years of active duty before you crashed, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ Steve admitted. ‘But if there are other heroes out there, they need leadership.’

Barnes shook his head. ‘Most of them are solo acts or already have leadership. They all have different reasons for doing what they do. Besides, they wouldn’t take your leadership.’

‘Why not?’ Steve demanded, like it was the most illogical thing he’d ever heard. ‘You took it just fine.’

No, Monty was their commanding officer. Steve just wouldn’t listen to anyone’s orders, so they let him think it was him, and Barnes had to manage him. _See, doc? My memory **is** coming back._ ‘Again, seventy years ago. A lot’s changed since then.’ He glared at him. ‘That’s what they’re trying to do here, punk. They’re trying to teach you how the world’s changed.’

Steve folded his arms. ‘Well, some things are better not changing.’

Barnes gave him a bland look. ‘You sound like a grumpy old man.’

Steve drew back. Then he quickly changed the subject. ‘But every time I go out, that guy’s following me! Or one of his friends! Did you see that guy made of metal?’ He jerked his finger out the door where Logan had just gone.

‘That’s because when you tried to break out of here when you woke up, you didn’t know he had super-strength too but you still used full force on him. If he’d been a normal guard, he’d be dead now.’

‘He’s a bully,’ Steve insisted.

‘No, he’s not.’ Barnes narrowed his eyes. ‘You just don’t like the fact that he can hold you down. Look, Steve, you crashed into the ice, you slept for seventy years and you woke up to a different world. And, even back then there was a _reason_ they didn’t want you in the army.’

Steve pulled a face. ‘I got in anyway!’

‘By a fluke.’ Barnes shook his head. ‘You were kept in quarrantine when you first woke up – and, in case you didn’t notice, Logan was too – because they heard that your mom died of TB while you were living with her. They didn’t know the effect the serum had on inactive TB. You were told this, and I know that for a fact. You were also told that you do have it, but it’s in a form that the human body will no longer respond to.’

‘No one told me that,’ Steve insisted.

Barnes cocked his head. ‘And...how much do you remember of what you have been told?’

Steve froze.

Barnes nodded. ‘You haven’t been listening. A word of advice, Stevie: _start_. You live here now and you can’t coast on Captain America’s reputation. Captain America is an advertising gimmick from World War II.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘They were actually talking about putting someone else in the role before they found you again.’

‘They can’t do that!’ Steve shook his head. ‘I _am_ Captain America!’

Barnes shook his head. ‘Captain America is an advertising gimmick for war. We’re not at war anymore. If you did put on the suit, you’d be representing the entire United States of America. You would need to know politics and international relations.’

‘I’m a soldier, Buck, not a dancing monkey.’

Barnes shook his head. ‘You didn’t even finish boot camp, punk.’

Steve looked concerned. ‘What happened to you, Buck? What’d Stark do to you?’

Barnes narrowed his eyes. ‘What did you think _HYDRA_ would do to me? They brainwashed me, Steve.’ He watched Steve’s eyes widen but cut him off before he could say anything. ‘They called me the Winter Soldier. Do you know how Tony’s parents died? I killed them.’

‘But you said you were brainwashed! It wasn’t you!’

‘And you think that takes it away?’ Barnes demanded. ‘You think it takes away the fact that Howard Stark and his wife were brutally murdered? That Tony was made an orphan when he was still just a kid? That it takes away the other people I killed? Of course not! And, I’ll be honest, Tony’s a bigger man than I could ever be. He found out about it, and he still decided to help me.’

‘What?’ Steve drew back.

‘Be honest, Steve. If you found out your mom had died by murder, rather than disease and you’d been lied to for years about it? Even if the killer was brainwashed, would you care to help them?’

Steve bit his lip.

‘Of course you wouldn’t.’ Barnes shook his head. ‘But Tony did. He refuses to be in the same room as me, and I don’t blame the guy, but he still helps me. The doctors helping me were all pulled in by Tony. My break from HYDRA was orchestrated by Tony. You’ve met him a grand total of _once_.’

‘He didn’t listen to me!’ Steve insisted.

‘You didn’t listen to him.’ Barnes straightened up and walked over. ‘Listen, punk. Despite how you feel about it, these people are trying to help you. If it bores you, well, too bad. You wanna get back into that Captain America suit, you sit down, listen, and take it all in. Trust me, Logan is sick of following you around everywhere.’

‘Then why does he do it?’

Barnes was sure that was meant to be a demand, but it came out more like a whine.

‘Because you’ve shown a propensity for violence that you just can’t do to baselines. Logan’s the only one who can really handle it. He can hold you down _and_ keep pace with you. Sure, one of his fellow X-Men, Pete, could keep pace with you but if you turned on him, you’d seriously hurt him. Learn to use your words, punk.’ He shook his head. ‘This society does not accept violence as readily as the one we grew up in did.’

‘But you said they have superheroes!’

‘Superheroes who only fight when they must.’

‘But...’ Steve tried to protest but nothing came.

Barnes shook his head. ‘No, no, Stevie. Don’t make any excuses, because that’s all they are; it’s all they’ve ever been. Your poor mom worked her fingers to the bone, and you only ever made it worse. She’s not here to clean up after you anymore, and I can’t afford to. It’s time to grow up!’

Steve shrank back.

***

‘I’ve been meaning to ask something,’ Pepper said the next time she and Sharee met for coffee.

‘Shoot,’ Sharee said.

‘Why did you leave that switch for one of the Starks to flick that switch. Theoretically, you put it in; you could’ve flicked it yourselves.’

Sharee paused and then sipped her coffee. ‘Okay, I agree with that. But we had two reasons. The first was practical. In order to expose the World Security Council, there needed to be a widely-accessible network to release the information onto. We could see it coming, but we knew we wouldn’t live long enough in those bodies to utilise it. So we had to entrust it to someone else, and Tony was our best option.’

Pepper nodded. ‘Okay, I can see that. And the second reason?’

‘More...vindictive, I suppose.’ Sharee shrugged, unrepentant. ‘HYDRA’s origins lie in an Inhuman called the Hive – his real name escapes me. He was picked up by a race called the Kree, along with several others of his people – that’s how we got the Inhumans. The powers they gave him were done via a hell of a lot of parasitic life forms. As a direct result he could force a hive mind upon all other Inhumans and dead bodies, with himself as the central intelligence.’

Pepper nodded. ‘And he wanted to force that on everyone?’

‘Pretty much. HYDRA, for the most part, has forgotten that. They honestly believe the world’s better off with their free will taken away from them, but don’t know where the idea came from. That is why they tried to use the Starks in the way they did. Carter knew how much power she was putting into Howard’s hands. That’s why she did everything she could to tear him down. HYDRA were ignorant of it. We thought we’d give them a stern reminder that when they use someone to get power, they inevitably place power in that someone’s hands.’

Pepper cracked a wry smile. ‘Do you think it’ll sink in?’

‘Eh.’ Sharee shrugged. ‘Differs from person to person. I’m only sorry Carter is no longer cognizant.’

‘She isn’t?’ Pepper asked.

‘Alzheimer’s. Pity. I’d have liked to see her face when she realised her whole “Greater Good” operation was nothing but a sham.’

Pepper laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was asked why the Transcendents didn't just do this themselves.
> 
> There's your answer.


End file.
